505 History and politics poems

Trees are never felled . . . in summer . . . Not when the fruit . . . is yet to be borne . . . Never before the promise . . . is fulfilled . . . Not when their cooling shade . . . has yet to comfort . . . Yet there are those . . . unheeding of nature . . . indifferent to ecology . . . ignorant of need . . . who . . . with ax and sharpened saw . . . would . . . in boots . . . step forth damaging . . . Not the tree . . . for it falls . . . But those who would . . . in summer’s heat . . . or winter’s cold . . . contemplate . . . the beauty . . .

From my hands—take this city not made by hands, my strange, my beautiful brother. Take it, church by church—all forty times forty churches, and flying up the roofs, the small pigeons; And Spassky Gates—and gates, and gates— where the Orthodox take off their hats; And the Chapel of Stars—refuge chapel— where the floor is—polished by tears; Take the circle of the five cathedrals, my coal, my soul; the domes wash us in their darkgold, And on your shoulders, from the red clouds, the Mother of God will drop her own thin coat, And you will rise, happened of wonderpowers —never ashamed you loved me. March 31 , 1916

Name one revolution whose inception was unlike a fist. Factions disparate, then tucked together—coiled like a fist. Foreign policies are symbol languages—idiomatic, cryptic. In America, nothing says "We desire peace" like a fist. The heart is a one-man rave in the body's industrial district. Blooddrunk and insomniac, it pumps toward sleep like a fist. Mammogram magic revealed my lover's dense breasts. Behind each nipple I kissed, a soft knot threatened her like a fist. Our universe's yet shattered mysteries fear the astrophysicist. "Damn his galaxies-thick glasses, his mind, relentless, like a fist." "Like a glove"—the young groom exalts his wife's love, its fit. Sounds romantic. (He means sex—her love's grip like a fist.) "An unfocused punch, Kyle, risks a broken hand or wrist." So laden the psyches of men. Father, must I also think like a fist?

The  pioneers and the indians disagree about a lot of things for example, the pioneer says that when you meet a bear in the woods you should yell at him and if that doesn't work, you should fell him The indians say that you should whisper to him softly and call him by loving nicknames No one's bothered to ask the bear what he thinks

Tonight Hazard’s father and stepmother are having jazz for McGovern. In the old game-room the old liberals listen as the quintet builds crazy houses out of skin and brass, crumbling the house of decorum, everybody likes that. For decades they have paid for the refurbishing of America and they have not got their money’s worth. Now they listen, hopeful, to the hard rock for McGovern. The ceiling in this palace needs fixing, the chalky blue paint is like an old heaven but there are holes and flaking. They had movies here when grandpa was solvent. Hazard desires his wife, the way people on the trains to the death camps were seized by irrational lust. She is the youngest woman in the room, he would like to be in bed with her now, he would like to be president. He has not been to his studio in four days, he asks the bartender, a college boy with a ponytail, for more gin. He stands in the doorway. Forsythia and lilac have overgrown the porch, there is the rich smell of wood-rot. What twenty years will do to untended shrubbery and America and Hazard.

This is what he dreams of: a map of burned land, a mound of dirt in the early century’s winter. A map of burned land? A country is razed in the early century’s winter. And God descends. A country is raised because of industry. And God descends, messengers rush inside because of industry, in spite of diplomats. Messengers rush inside to haunt the darkened aisles. In spite of diplomats, the witnesses know well to haunt the darkened aisles, experimentally— the witnesses know well that ushers dressed in black experimentally lurk by the cushioned seats. That ushers dress in black should tell you something: lurking by the cushioned seats, the saved and the terrible. I should tell you something: this is what he dreams of, the saved and the terrible— a mound of dirt.

The rich men, they know about suffering That comes from natural things, the fate that Rich men say they can't control, the swell of The tides, the erosion of polar caps And the eruption of a terrible Greed among those who cease to be content With what they lack when faced with wealth they are Too ignorant to understand. Such wealth Is the price of progress. The fishmonger Sees the dread on the faces of the trout And mackerel laid out at the market Stall on quickly melting ice. In Pompeii The lava flowed and buried the people So poems such as this could be born.

My Dear Khomeini: I read your fourteen thousand dollar ad asking me why the Vatican waited all of these years to send an envoy to complain about conditions in Iran You’re right, we should have sent one when the Shah was in power, look, I’m in total agreement with you Khomeini, that Christ, had he lived in Iran under the Shah, would have led the biggest damned revolt you ever saw Believe me, Khomeini, I knew about the Shah’s decadence, his extravagance his misdeeds, and how he lolled about in luxury with Iran’s loot I knew about the trail of jewels which led to his Dad’s capture but a fella has to eat and so when David Rockefeller asked me to do something how could I refuse? You can afford to be holier than thou What is it, 30 dollars per barrel these days? You must be bathing in oil While each day I suffer a new indignity You know that rock record they made me do? It’s 300 on the Charts which is about as low as you can get. And I guess you read where I had to call in all those Cardinals and for the first time reveal the Vatican budget? I had to just about get down on my hands and knees to get them to co-sign for a loan The Vatican jet has a mechanical problem and the Rolls-Royce needs a new engine The staff hasn’t been paid in months and the power company is threatening to turn off the candles To add to that, the building inspector has listed us as having 30,000 code violations I’m telling you, Khomeini, that so many people are leaving the church I have this nightmare where I wake up one day in Los Angeles and I’m the only one left Pretty soon we’ll be one of those cults you read about in the San Francisco Chronicle

inside the car françois and i could see the light coming from the cigarette michele duvalier was smoking her husband declared president for life looked like a fat chauffeur sitting beind the wheel françois and i smiled the small procession of cars slipping past us in the dark we did not know that a few miles away people were already celebrating nor could we see joy on the faces of the men who ran holding knives and sticks to the place where papa doc was buried tonight even ghosts will die as françois and i walk barefoot at the center of port-au-prince

Three items in an envelope. A photograph of two, four, six, eight, nine boys boarding a bus. Not boys, men. Dressed in the long wool coat of winter. Something “based on the life of.” What can a moment outlast? That question becomes a theory, theorem, mechanism. Three boys, one girl, a tree brushing back air off her forehead. Paper, six clean sheets, a monogrammed envelope. An index. The physical bias to existence becomes some wedge, the inexact value of an empire of ether. Tick-tick. The amphibian emerges from water, walks off stage. It’s as if evolution is embodied in absence. Someone is lying on her back. She turns over. Her breath is in the air. Or in the idea of atmosphere.